Humint Events Online: You Say You Want a Revolution....

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

You Say You Want a Revolution....

Powerful words:
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop," Mario Savio said in 1964. "And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

The capacity to exercise moral autonomy, the capacity to refuse to cooperate, offers us the only route left to personal freedom and a life with meaning. Rebellion is its own justification. Those of us who come out of the religious left have no quarrel with Camus. Camus is right about the absurdity of existence, right about finding worth in the act of rebellion rather than some bizarre dream of an afterlife or Sunday School fantasy that God rewards the just and the good. "Oh my soul," the ancient Greek poet Pindar wrote, "do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible." We differ with Camus only in that we have faith that rebellion is not ultimately meaningless. Rebellion allows us to be free and independent human beings, but rebellion also chips away, however imperceptibly, at the edifice of the oppressor and sustains the dim flames of hope and love. And in moments of profound human despair these flames are never insignificant. They keep alive the capacity to be human. We must become, as Camus said, so absolutely free that "existence is an act of rebellion." Those who do not rebel in our age of totalitarian capitalism and who convince themselves that there is no alternative to collaboration are complicit in their own enslavement. They commit spiritual and moral suicide.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Speaking of hope and enslavement, just do not know what to make of the McCain/Lieberman bill for the suspension of habeas corpus (arrest, no miranda, indefinite detention, interrogation, torture) for u.s. citizens. Anyone suspected of being a dissident is/or could be, considered a belligerent.
Is this bill some sort of provocation? Clearly, just writing such a bill is in itself an act of treason. Remaining quiet seems like an act of quiet despair.

8:44 AM  
Blogger K.L. Ashley said...

Breaking out of the TV stupor?

8:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nancy Pelosi said, "But we have to pass the [health care ] bill so that you can find out what is in it."

10:47 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The link to the McCain/Lieberman bill: The Enemy Beligerent Detainment, Blah, Blah, Persecution Bill:
http://assets.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/ARM10090.pdf

11:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks, 11:16.

That fuckin "act" says

"An individual, including a citizen of the United
13 States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent
14 under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article
15 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of
16 Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal
17 charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities
18 against the United States or its coalition partners in which
19 the individual has engaged, or which the individual has
20 purposely and materially supported, consistent with the
21 law of war and any authorization for the use of military
22 force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities..."


So this motherfucker McCain is trying to create the final total Gestapo govt.

It is indeed time for the armed revolution, and hopefully some of the armed forces will do the right thing.

10:55 PM  
Blogger K.L. Ashley said...

On the email list of "answer coalition".

"On Sunday night, March 6, volunteers in Los Angeles were arrested for allegedly putting up three posters announcing the March 20th action. They were charged with felony vandalism and kept in jail on a $20,000 bail for each of them."

Identical in San Francisco, etc.

"In Washington, D.C., the ANSWER Coalition has been hit with another wave of fines for March 20th political posters."

"The large corporations, including the biggest war contractors and banks, have billions of dollars to advertise their message of war and profit."

Is this real? Believe so. Demonstration, protest, gone.

9:10 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Powered by Blogger